"Robert Rankin - The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

'The world will be a better place without you in it.' The lad steadied his pistol with both hands. 'You are
a monster.'

'And you are an iconoclast,' moaned the farmer, still hopping. 'With no respect for tradition.'

'Such is indeed the truth. Now hand me your purse. You are losing a great deal of blood. It would be
well for you to return to your farmhouse and have your wife dress your wounds.'

'Damn you,' said the farmer, adding profanities to these words.

'Your purse,now !'

The farmer grudgingly produced his purse. It was a weighty purse, full as it was with the gold of a foolish
boy who had passed that way earlier in the day and failed to heed the farmer's advice. This foolish boy
presently hung in joints in the farmer's smoking house.

'On second thoughts,' said the lad, 'I think it would be for the best if you went down into the hole.’

‘What?' cried the farmer. 'What?'

'The path is narrow,' said the lad. 'Your horse might stumble into that hole, if it doesn't have something to
place its hoof upon.'

'What?' the farmer cried again.

'I mean to borrow your horse; I have walked enough for one day.'

'This is outrageous. Preposterous.'

'Best to get it over with as quickly as possible. Before you bleed to death.'

'But the hole.' The farmer ceased his hopping and stared down into the hole. 'The spikes. I am not so
scrawny as you.'

'Spare,' said the lad. 'Wiry.'

'I will puncture myself.'

'That's a chance we'll have to take. The hole, or die where you stand.’

‘But the spikes...'

'Perhaps fate will smile upon you.’

‘Fate wears a somewhat glum face at present.’

‘Really? Yet I would swear that it grins in my direction.’

‘You...' The farmer spoke further profanity. 'The hole, and now.' The lad cocked his clockwork pistol.